The Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999 is a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...

that increased the possible civil penalties for copyright infringement. It also attempted to clear an administrative hurdle that was preventing the

United States Sentencing Commission The United States Sentencing Commission is an independent agency of the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for articulating the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the federal courts. The Commission promulgate ...

from implementing the

NET Act The United States No Electronic Theft Act (NET Act), a federal law passed in 1997, provides for criminal prosecution of individuals who engage in copyright infringement under certain circumstances, even when there is no monetary profit or comme ...

of 1997's increased criminal penalties for similar offenses.

Details

The range of allowable statutory damages in civil actions for copyright infringement was established by a previous act as a minimum of $500 per work, and a maximum of either $20,000 or $100,000 per work, depending on whether the infringement was "willful." The new legislation increased these amounts by 50%, changing the minimum to $750, and the maximums to $30,000 and $150,000.

Rationale

When introducing an earlier version of the bill in the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

, Rep.

Howard Coble John Howard Coble (March 18, 1931 – November 3, 2015) was an American politician who was the U.S. Representative for , serving from 1985 to 2015. He was a member of the Republican Party. The district includes all or portions of ten counties in ...

( R- NC) stated that widespread use of the Internet and the advent of high-capacity storage media like the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

had the potential to worsen the problem of disregard for copyright, so increased penalties were needed to more strongly deter infringement. This rationale was cited in the '' Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum'' case, which, among other things, unsuccessfully sought to challenge the fairness of the statutory damage range. When introducing a new version of the bill in the House, Rep. Coble stated that it "provides an inflation adjustment" in order "to provide meaningful disincentives for infringement, and to accomplish that, the cost of infringement must substantially exceed the cost of the compliance so that those who use or distribute intellectual property have incentive to comply with the law." After the bill passed the

Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the ...

, Sen.

Patrick Leahy Patrick Joseph Leahy (; born March 31, 1940) is an American politician and attorney who is the senior United States senator from Vermont and serves as the president pro tempore of the United States Senate. A member of the Democratic Party, Le ...

( D- VT) said that the increase would help deter digital copyright infringement, especially software piracy.Congressional Record

References

External links

* {{authority control United States copyright law Acts of the 106th United States Congress